We can agree or not, it doesn't much matter. But the numbers speak for themselves.
779 hens not shot during the fall does does not necessarily correlate to 779 extra hens breeding come spring. Illegal and natural mortality will still take a toll on them.
Whatever one wants to believe, the numbers show that the population grew substantially through the years when there was greater fall pressure than there is today. There are more birds in Virginia today than there were in the 1990s and 2000s. Yet fall harvests were far higher then.
BTW, the decrease in harvest from 1990 in no way reflects fewer birds. It reflects less hunter participation.
The simple fact is, populations fluctuate each year. But the trend is up and there is no reason at this time to believe that won't continue, and no reason to believe that restricting fall hunting further will have some substantial positive increase in the number of birds.
If you spend lots of time outdoors in Virginia, it's not hard to see where the real problems lie:
Fields and woods that used to have lots of birds are now covered with housing developments and condos.
Fields that are still there are covered in geese increasing the chances of disease transmission.
There has been huge increase in the numbers of raptors that take poults and adult birds.
Few people in Virginia hunt raccoons, skunks, coyotoes or crows anymore - all will either kill adult birds, poults, or destroy nests.
Poaching is a huge problem and the Va DWR is underfunded and understaffed to deal with it.
I'm not particularly ready to simply give up hunting, in the spring or fall, when despite all this, the population trend is going up. I will not support further restriuctions to the fall season when the objective evidence doesn't support that it will have any substatial positive impact.